This whole thing makes me so sick. Misogyny through and through. Take away all opportunities for women to have a safe space, leadership opportunities without oppression, and being forced to live in the "good ole boys" world without respite. Of course, since women aren't paid equally, I suppose their alumnae withholding donations or the like wouldn't have much of an effect.

But....

Thinking it is worse for the women to lose their groups than it is for the men to lose theirs is kind of the same mindset Harvard is presenting. It sucks for everyone.

The real danger is that what is going on at Harvard will spread to other private universities. Harvard has such influence over PC administrators in the education establishment. Don't be surprised if this is just the start. Look for Yale to go after the all male secret societies.

Years ago I read Elizabeth Wurtzelís book Prozac Nation and she talks about her experience of busting her butt excelling so she could get into Harvard, and then getting there, and realizing it was just a place like any other place, it wasnít magic, and her classmates were 17-22 year olds with bad decision making skills and raging hormones, just like anywhere else. Banning fraternities and sororities isnít going to ban behaviors.

Wellesley is not close enough to be feasible to share a chapter with as far as undergrads without transportation go..... I don't know of any NPC orgs that do regional undergrad chapters.... this could be a consideration with other Boston city schools?

I certainly haven't heard of any NPC orgs with regional undergrad chapters. There might even be something in the Unanimous Agreements prohibiting it.

I'm an alumna of MIT, so I'm very familiar with the Boston/Cambridge area. MIT students, particularly undergrads, are actively discouraged from bringing cars to campus. I imagine the same is true at Harvard. And Wellesley students driving to Harvard would be hard pressed to find parking. (You can't "pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd".) IIRC, Alpha Kappa Alpha has a chapter with members from MIT, Harvard, and Wellesley, but I have no idea how they get around the transportation logistics. Back in my day, MIT and Wellesley had a cross-registration program, and there was a shuttle bus so that students could get back and forth, but that wouldn't help the Harvard students. Of course, there are plenty of other schools in the Boston/Cambridge area that are reachable by bus or T.

Back on topic - I'm sorry to hear that Theta at Harvard is shutting down because of Harvard's ban on single-sex organizations.

__________________AEΦ ... Multa Corda, Una Causa ... Celebrating Over 100 Years of SisterhoodHave no place I can be since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me...
Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go.

I think the sororities would have tried to continue, but the number of women who signed up for recruitment was less than half from prior years (as this was first year PNMs were subject to sanctions), making it hard for some to continue financially. Becoming gender neutral groups, they will basically continue as before but as private finals clubs where members will not be sanctioned. Bear in mind all will be open to male members, but will be allowed to be "female focused", so highly lilely there will be no men lining up to join. In the end, Harvard will have created gender neutral clubs in name only exclusive to Harvard.

SAE has a Boston-citywide chapter for all 4-year schools that don't already have an active SAE chapter. It's been done before in the city by non-NPHC groups (who don't have as much experience running a citywide chapter), so perhaps they will pick up some Harvard students as well or inspire other groups to do something similar.

I believe AEPi also does citywide groups in cities where there isn't one school with a critical mass of Jewish students large enough to support a healthy chapter on its own.

So this leaves Alpha Phi, the last of the four sororities to charter and now—the last one left. It seems pointless to stay; but I guess you can have a Panhel with just one group. But when recruitment begins...and I can’t imagine many women will now be interested—will they have to bid EVERY WOMAN who goes through recruitment? It will be interesting to see.

I don't understand the point of forcing Greek organizations to become mixed gender. Why can't we take the approach that we take with sports teams. No one is asking for NCAA teams to mix genders instead it's a kind of separate but equal situation.

If there were sororities but no fraternities or fraternities and no sororities I might be able to understand the argument that one gender is being discriminated against but since both genders have groups why can't separate but equal be acceptable in this situation.

I don't understand the point of forcing Greek organizations to become mixed gender. Why can't we take the approach that we take with sports teams. No one is asking for NCAA teams to mix genders instead it's a kind of separate but equal situation.

If there were sororities but no fraternities or fraternities and no sororities I might be able to understand the argument that one gender is being discriminated against but since both genders have groups why can't separate but equal be acceptable in this situation.

Not really sure that using the terminology of Plessy v. Ferguson is the way to go. If the reasoning doesn't separate Social groups from Professional/Honorary groups, then the argument becomes why shouldn't Title IX have covered all the groups with Greek Letters, treating (for example) Delta Delta Delta like Phi Delta Delta, Cwens and Omega Phi Alpha.

__________________
Because "undergrads, please abandon your national policies and make something up" will end well --KnightShadow

So this leaves Alpha Phi, the last of the four sororities to charter and nowóthe last one left. It seems pointless to stay; but I guess you can have a Panhel with just one group. But when recruitment begins...and I canít imagine many women will now be interestedówill they have to bid EVERY WOMAN who goes through recruitment? It will be interesting to see.

They donít have to bid anyone. No sorority does. Also, if thereís only one sorority, the NPC chapter would automatically dissolve.

The sports team thing is that there are supposed to be as many opportunities for women as for men - you canít have a football, baseball, and wrestling team for men and then just a golf team for women.

The groups will simply run as local fraternities and sororities with a half dozen members of the opposite sex on the rolls, who just happen to be not very active and never show up for anything. (Thatís what I would do, anyway.)

Here is an article published in today's New York Times about Delta Gamma closing.

According to the article, Theta is not so much closing entirely as becoming gender-neutral - I'm guessing something similar to Kappa and Fleur-de-Lis? Of course, as a gender-neutral group, they could not continue to operate as a Theta chapter.

__________________AEΦ ... Multa Corda, Una Causa ... Celebrating Over 100 Years of SisterhoodHave no place I can be since I found Serenity, but you can't take the sky from me...
Only those who risk going too far, find out how far they can go.

According to the article, Theta is not so much closing entirely as becoming gender-neutral - I'm guessing something similar to Kappa and Fleur-de-Lis? Of course, as a gender-neutral group, they could not continue to operate as a Theta chapter.

I think it is completely disingenuous to view this as anything other than imposing punishments that led to the chapter closing. And CLOSING is exactly what happened. Just because the same group of girls start a new type of co-ed organization does not mean that the Theta chapter is just reorganizing or becoming a different kind of GLO. It is GONE.

They can call it whatever the hell they want. The plain truth is that Harvard drove the established Greek system out of Harvard, so that the students have no one to oversee or answer to other than Harvard.